Attenborough to retire in 2005

Veteran BBC natural history presenter David Attenborough has ended months of speculation by admitting he plans to retire - but not until 2005, when he will be 80.

Attenborough said he wanted to make one more big natural history documentary series, about insects, after his current show Life of Mammals, which starts next month.

His retirement will leave a major hole in the BBC's natural history department where Attenborough has worked for almost 50 years, creating some of the corporation's most internationally renowned works including Life on Earth and Life in the Freezer.

He expects to complete the series about insects by 2005 and then plans to put away his khaki shorts for good.

"By then I'll be in my 80th year. I'm hoping they'll invent a motorised zimmer frame to get me up trees," Attenborough joked.

The BBC is to broadcast a special programme to commemorate Attenborough's 50 years in TV next month.

Attenborough started his career at the BBC as a trainee in 1952 after gaining a zoology degree and within two years he was making Zoo Quest, which ran for 10 years.

He spent the next decade behind the scenes - as controller of BBC2 and then as the BBC's director of programmes - before tirelessly trekking the globe for Life on Earth, which was screened in 1979.

His rise to fame was sealed with The Living Planet, The Trials of Life, The Private Life of Plants, The Life of Birds and now The Life of Mammals, due to be shown next month.

In the past Attenborough has quipped that he would never retire and that the only thing that would slow him down was a zimmer frame.